At this question the young man dropped the whole lot on the ground with a crash.
“Imbecile!” cried Homais, “awkward lout! blockhead! confounded ass!”
But suddenly controlling himself—
“I wished, doctor, to make an analysis, and primo I delicately introduced a tube—”
“You would have done better,” said the physician, “to introduce your fingers into her throat.”
His colleague was silent, having just before privately received a severe lecture about his emetic, so that this good Canivet, so arrogant and so verbose at the time of the clubfoot, was today very modest. He smiled without ceasing in an approving manner.
Homais dilated in Amphytrionic pride, and the affecting thought of Bovary vaguely contributed to his pleasure by a kind of egotistic reflex upon himself. Then the presence of the doctor transported him. He displayed his erudition, cited pell-mell cantharides, upas, the manchineel, vipers.
“I have even read that various persons have found themselves under toxicological symptoms, and, as it were, thunderstricken by black-pudding that had been subjected to a too vehement fumigation. At least, this was stated in a very fine report drawn up by one of our pharmaceutical chiefs, one of our masters, the illustrious Cadet de Gassicourt!”
Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those shaky machines that are heated with spirits of wine; for Homais liked to make his coffee at table, having, moreover, torrefied it, pulverised it, and mixed it himself.